Some Penn State fans may find this stat troubling but is it troubling to James Franklin going into USC?
This season, Big Ten football teams are playing on the opposite coast more frequently than ever.
This is, of course, because of the league adding Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.
So far, there have been nine inter-coast games within the Big Ten conference and the home team has one nine of them. Penn State has only played in one of these games and won it, beating UCLA at Beaver Stadium last Saturday. USC has played in three and lost two of them, both of which in games it came in favored to win (at Michigan and Minnesota.) If people are to believe there’s a correlation between heavy travel and poor performance, Penn State is in trouble.
Fun fact: Big 10 teams are 1-8 in conference play when traveling to the opposite Coast
— LandonTengwall (@landon_tengwall) October 7, 2024
The only team to win a game when playing on the opposite coast is 6-0 Indiana, which pounded UCLA in the Rose Bowl Sept. 14.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Although Penn State coach James Franklin is aware of the “1-8” stat, he was hoping nobody would bring it up this week.
That’s not paraphrasing, either.
“I was hoping that nobody would bring that up,” Franklin told reporters at his post-practice scrum Wednesday. “We’re not focused on that or talking about that or concerned about that. We’re focused on what we have to do, Penn State, to handle our business. But, yeah, we’re not taking about that.”
Penn State is, however, concerned about USC. If the No. 4 team in the country wins Saturday, it will give Penn State a clear path to the 12-team College Football Playoff. A loss complicates the matter quite a bit. We’ll find out in a few days.
